United States' Brandon Phillips smiles and waves to the fans as he walks off the field with teammate Craig Kimbrel after a World Baseball Classic win over Canada. / Ross D. Franklin, AP

by Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Sports

by Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Sports

PHOENIX -- It took one swing of the bat, a few swings of the fist, and the World Baseball Classic finally has everything it's coveted since its inception.

Life, momentum and a future.

Team USA, sparked by Adam Jones' two-run double heard 'round the WBC, knocked off Canada, 9-4, whose fisticuffs and bravado a day earlier reminded us why we're supposed to care about this event.

The tournament still has plenty of flaws, and something is wrong when Miami Marlins star Giancarlo Stanton is sitting on the bench the entire game and Washington Nationals All-Star pitcher Gio Gonzalez has yet to see his USA teammates, but his team's victory at least sparked this country's interest.

"It would have been embarrassing if we had lost," said USA second baseman Brandon Phillips, a batboy in the 1996 Olympics. "USA, this is where baseball started. We have to represent our country. And I feel like if we had lost, we didn't do our job.

"This is a blessing in disguise, man. We shouldn't have been here. But we picked ourselves up. It's a beautiful thing. It's a dream come true."

And how close it became to a national and WBC public-relations nightmare. Canada, which engaged in a full-scale brawl against Mexico, was five outs away from putting Team USA away for the biggest victory in their history. Yet, when you're using a starting pitcher who has never pitched above Class AA, and two relievers who were in Japan last year, you discover the cruel reality that miracles only happen in hockey.

The U.S., which led in only five innings in the tourney, got its biggest hit in WBC history with Jones' two-run double in the eighth. It broke the Canadians' spirit, and allowed the U.S. players to escape to Miami without returning to their spring training camps with the shame of eight countries playing a tourney without them.

"I'm not ready to go back to Goodyear, man," said Phillips, the Cincinnati Reds second baseman, of the club's Arizona camp, "because there's nothing in Goodyear. I'm ready to go back to Miami."

If you watched Team USA these first three games of the tourney you can understand Canadian hitting coach Larry Walker's viewpoint.